Ripe for the Picking - BBC Article

Ripe for the picking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8280425.stm

By Hugh Wilson 

Walk down many a suburban street at
this time of year and you will see trees stuffed with ripe fruit - much
of which will simply rot and go to waste. But would you let a stranger
into your garden to do the picking?

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness seems particularly fruitful this year.

Fat
red apples hang heavy in private gardens. Roadside verges sparkle with
the ruby glow of ripening berries. Nature's bounty is everywhere to
see, from countryside tracks to the wilder corners of council-owned
greenbelt.

Autumn is harvest time, of course, and both city and
countryside are awash with an abundance of apples, pears and
blackberries. This is a free and accessible source of fresh and
scrumptious fruit, waiting to be picked. And surprisingly, much of it
is left to ripen, wither, fall and rot, providing sustenance only for
wasps and rats.

Someone will have an apple tree in their garden and still go to Tesco for apples

Agnes Beviz

"People are wary of fruit that doesn't come pre-packed from a
supermarket," says Daniele Rinaudo, coordinator for Sheffield
Abundance, a group that collects unwanted fruit from the gardens and
open spaces of the city and distributes it to worthy causes. "We are so
far removed these days from the food we eat, we waste so much."

The
Abundance movement, which began in Sheffield in 2007 and is slowly
spreading across the country, aims to change all that. Rinaudo says the
South Sheffield group collects about 70% of its bounty from private
gardens, and 30% from wild spaces and public land.

"We're
always amazed at how much is out there," he says. "At the moment, we
can collect up to a ton of fruit twice a week. When you think that one
good apple tree can give you 300 kilos of fruit, that's some
potential."

Agnes Beviz of Manchester Abundance (an entirely
independent operation - the groups share only inspiration) has been
similarly surprised at just how much unwanted fruit is out there, even
in the middle of densely populated cities.

Knock on doors

"Once
you start looking upwards when you walk or cycle, rather than down at
the pavement, you start seeing fruit trees everywhere," she says. Many
of them are in private gardens, but as Beviz adds, "someone will have
an apple tree in their garden and still go to Tesco for apples".

Rotting fruit - up and down the country, fresh food is going to waste

Abundance groups don't steal fruit, they simply ask the people who
own trees if they can pick it. As a local group becomes well known,
tree owners will often come forward offering access to their unwanted
apples or pears.

"We're as proactive as we can be," says
Daniele Rinaudo. "Just yesterday I knocked on one door and the lady
said 'if only you'd come before'. She's got four apple trees and a pear
tree. It's a typical reaction. Most people are pleased the fruit is
being used."

The results of these labours are distributed to
children's centres, homeless shelters and centres housing asylum
seekers, among others. That's positive in itself, but the educational
aspect of the Abundance philosophy is important too.

"They're
very local groups but they emphasise wider environmental issues," says
Anna Terzi, a project officer for Sustain, the alliance for better food
and farming. "They are illustrating concepts like food miles,
seasonality and rediscovering old varieties. They're getting people
away from the idea that blackberries have to come in little boxes, or
that apples have to be this perfectly round red thing."

Sensible exploitation

Thanks
to the inspiration and experience that Manchester and Sheffield
provide, new Abundance groups - or groups that share the philosophy, if
not the name - have sprung up in Leeds (Leeds Urban Harvest), Bristol
(Fruit Sharers), Nottingham, Edinburgh, London and elsewhere. But the
final aim is to do away with city-wide groups altogether.

A proto-environmentalist at work in the 1950s

"Really we don't want to be going to the other side of Sheffield to
gather fruit," says Rinaudo. "It would be great to get to the point
where streets or neighbourhoods just see it as a natural thing to
collect and distribute all this unwanted food themselves."

Agnes
Beviz agrees that Abundance groups are better as small, local
operations. "Our group just covers a small area of South Manchester,"
she says. "We want to encourage other people in other parts of the city
to set up their own groups."

Abundance groups think theirs is
an idea whose time has come. They say that in a time of recession and
environmental concern, exploiting a local source of fresh food just
seems sensible.

And of course, there doesn't have to be any
formal project in place at all. As a visitor to one Abundance message
board writes: "There are a few people with fruit trees round here and
when the fruit gets too much they leave it in front of the house with a
little note saying 'help yourself'."

Please feel free to post your views on this article. Do you have fruit you could share with others? Please post up any offers on this page.